Hardly Sentiment
by CampionSayn
Summary: There is little to say about allowing some blonde punching bag to stay in the abandoned building you're using for a hideout. There is nothing to say, really. Crane/Harley.


Title: Hardly Sentiment  
Summary: There is little to say about allowing some blonde punching bag to stay in the abandoned building you're using for a hideout. There is nothing to say, really. Crane/Harley.  
Warnings: This has some mildly disturbing elements, featuring hints of Joker/Harley Quinn, but mostly this is a feature of Crane/Harley comfort. There will be blood and swearing, but still, that is just mild for anything to do with TDK.  
Disclaimer: I own no characters, I own no rights to this series, I make no money from this.  
Dedication: I suppose this goes out to many of my favorite authors in this sections; the three main ones being both **Pierides** and **Toccata** **No**. **9** and **E**.**S**. **Young**, who all represent a growing faction that wonders about the other famous Gotham Rogues in the Batman comics and how they would work in Nolan's version. I like them and, therefore, find myself having to flatter them. This pales in comparison, but I'm bored at midnight.

* * *

_-:-  
"Of course I know it." He was silent for a moment or two.  
"Have you no curiosity?" he asked then.  
-The Painted Veil._

* * *

There is nothing to be said about finding such a worthless woman in an empty building in the middle of the Narrows.

Nothing at all.

But, unlike many of the other destitute Jonathan Crane had found in many of the buildings he chose to take refuge in—where he would look for them, gas them and then seal the place tight as an oil drum—Jonathan didn't find it necessary to do so to the tiny little blonde that he'd found on the top floor of his new dwelling just kind of sitting on the ledge of an empty window, trying not to breathe and disturb the four broken ribs she was sporting, holding an already bloody handkerchief to her split bottom lip.

So, he didn't bother her. They were amicable enough in the old days when he was still her boss and she was still just a low-level (though brilliant and, admittedly, kind) therapist; so he continued to look around the rest of the building for someone to gas before he started to set up house. He didn't even go back to see her after he had finished surveillance and found that there was still a large, semi-tolerable sofa to sleep on.

He'd fallen asleep to his usual dark thoughts of mulling over what to do next, what to scheme, what to test with fear.

Jonathan had awoken to light streaming through some of the building's broken windows and the faint smell of biscuits and cheep sausage. As he'd come to, he found than a battered and wobble-legged coffee table had been pulled over near his head and had two wrapped packages of breakfast from one of the fast food restaurants nearby, the receipt from the purchase sitting under one of the biscuits, her dainty hand writing.

All there was to say was, '_Thanks for not kicking me out, Jonny_.'

He ate the meal provided, but didn't see her again in the place. He didn't care to look, figuring that she had simply wanted to thank him for not gassing her—and considering she had met Scarecrow on occasion, she knew how difficult that was for him sometimes—then scrambled off to a better hole to die in.

A week or so later, he found out on the radio that he sometimes kept in his hideouts so he could distract himself from having to fight with Scarecrow, that instead of going off to die in some little rat hole infested with lowlifes less hospitable than he, she had gotten caught by the Batman wandering the alleys near one of the hospitals Jonathan and a few other of Gotham's Rogues went to so they could steal supplies. It was a small wonder that she hadn't been able to run far as Batman had ended up dropping her off at one of the better hospitals on account of internal bleeding.

* * *

She ended up stumbling upon him the next time he saw her. Six months in Arkham and seven weeks with Joker—again—had not been much kinder to her, but at least she didn't seem to have any broken ribs this time.

It was morning, this time, when she'd wandered into what was serving as his living area in an old "penthouse" of a five story building, carrying a small silk knapsack of what little clothing she had other than the black and white leather, spandex and such she wore to make the Clown happy. Waking him up was not a good thing to do when he was still wearing his Scarecrow suit, the triggers up the sleeves immediately at the ready when she'd fallen through the window and crashed into the table that held his half-finished coffee pot and mug that ended up crashing to the floor and breaking. She'd squeaked when landing on the broken glass that cut open her knee and been down the wrong end of his right hand pointed out and ready to gas her.

Much to his relief—though Scarecrow had grumbled for an hour afterwards—she hadn't panicked at his bleary eyed, freaked out look in his eyes, her own tinged with something he would not be able to recognize for a long time after actually knowing her.

"Sorry, to drop in like this," she'd smiled loosely, the swollen purple around her left eye making the look just plain sad when he had the chance to think on it later, "I thought the place was empty."

His palm had still been outstretched, fingers splayed like claws of a cat, when she'd picked herself up, apologized for disturbing him, then left out the same window.

She left a little blood trail along the windowsill on her way elsewhere that Scarecrow had pointed out only after it had dried six hours later and turned a kind of rusty brown.

Jonathan had landed in Arkham a day later during a little incidental fight with the Bat when he'd dilly-dallied too long watching some workers at the bank he'd been robbing wriggle around on the floor screaming, crying and generally acting unremarkable under the throws of his fear gas. Joker was also there, causing everyone—including Jonathan himself—migraines that spanned unto eternity.

Harley had come and set into motion a break-out a month later in which most of the Rogues escaped.

The cut along her knee was still secreting blood under the black tights she wore that were forever riddled with holes that reminded him of bullet holes in Kevlar.

* * *

His back hurt, his head felt like it had a separate heartbeat, he was nauseous.

"You know, sugar, if you treated these injuries earlier on, you wouldn't have to take such strong painkillers when you have to get stitched up."

And Harley had been talking to keep his mind off of the way she was stitching up a head laceration just below his hairline that previously had been bleeding profusely after he'd stumbled drunkenly into the nearest empty building he could find to hide from the cops only to find her bundled up in a nightgown on her sofa. It was actually good that it was Harley's hideout or he'd probably be unconscious and dying.

"I don't recall that you have done much better in the past."

"True, but it had to be said, since you ignore practically everything else I bring up."

"Everything else being the Joker and Miss Ivy."

She tugged a little more harshly on the stitch near the base of his ear at that, but didn't do more than that. She actually shut up.

'_Finally_…' Scarecrow hissed in the back of Crane's mind at the blissful silence, only broken by the sounds of the city outside the building which consisted of car alarms going off, backing too far into traffic to cause honking of horns and twenty-seven pigeons perched on the balcony cooing.

It was a little disconcerting when after five more minutes of the blessed silence Crane's stitches were complete and the blonde ex-psychotherapist just tucked away the med-kit and walked—limped, she had been beaten by Joker with a mutilated baseball bat two days ago and still couldn't really continue a more steady and dignified gate for more than ten minutes at a time—into the kitchen to (and here Jonathan can hear Scarecrow mutter about house maids and how good pink aprons are on some women) wash the dishes she'd left to soak an hour before _he'd_ dropped into _her_hideout to heal himself.

He leaned backward where he sat on the couch—a nicer spectacle than he'd ever scrounged up made of blue and golden upholstery with feathery designs, clean but smelling of both dust and Harley's tea rose perfume—and took on a restful pose, one arm being used as his own pillow and the other being draped over his stomach, being careful of his own bruised or cracked upper ribs.

Jonathan fell asleep like that. However, he did wake up around three in the morning to use the bathroom, finding a clean pink pillow behind his head and a bleach scented—hideous—orange blanket draped over his wiry frame, his boots taken off and placed next to the sofa itself, the top part of his costume on a hanger in the kitchen doorway; he'd been fitted into some bandages for a cut on his stomach.

After using the facilities, he blearily ended up stumbling into the room Harley had been using to sleep in, just a couple mattresses in the center of the room, outfitted in clean—rumpled—black sheets, multi-colored blankets and Harley hugging herself.

Jonathan only managed to feel the cold of late winter on his skin when he noticed Harley's sleeping breath puff into a mist and then disappear. The building was well insulated in the living room, but as the blue eyed master of fear looked about, he found that there was a fireplace in the far corner of the place with little embers still abuzz with orange and red that had once signified the heat that had radiated from what was left of the deep black ruins of wood. It had been warm earlier, probably, but now it wasn't.

Scarecrow was quiet, for the first time in weeks—mostly due to the head trauma, Jonathan will think three days later, eating jellied toast while listening to Harley's ghastly music; him working on a new formula to try with his fear gas and her calling up Jervis to check on the Hatter while she tried and failed to make tea for when the Englishman would doubtlessly come over—as Jonathan didn't even grasp at a notion as to why he moved back into the living room, picked up the pillow and blanket and went back into the bedroom where he could see his own breath only when his eyes could focus long enough.

He took a position in front of where she lay, put down his pillow, made certain they were wrapped separately in their own covers so they didn't try to smack each other in the morning for invading the other's space. She didn't change position as he rested his head and fell asleep. He didn't move closer to her.

Just because they weren't skin to skin, didn't mean it didn't get warmer.


End file.
